Sekisui House Story

Sekisui House adopts more effective ways of managing community development and discovers unexpected benefits

About Sekisui House

Founded in Japan in 1960, Sekisui House is a homebuilder and community developer credited with the construction of over two million homes. Its trademark approach to sustainability combines eco-responsible design principles—in 2008 it introduced the world’s first Zero Emission House—with a commitment to enhancing the social, economic and residential value of the homes and communities it develops. The company’s Australian operations span over 6 major urban community developments in New South Wales and Queensland, including ‘The Hermitage’, a master-planned community in Sydney’s Gledswood Hill, which, on completion, will accommodate more than 2,000 homes, a range of dwelling types, and over 6,000 residents.

The challenge

Required to report to, and collaborate with, a wide variety of stakeholders, including state and local government bodies, project managers, trade contractors, and sales and marketing staff, the Sekisui House team needed the support of a comprehensive set of frequently updated site images and easy-to-use visual analytic tools. By implementing such a platform, it would also be able to remotely monitor developments onsite, reduce the number of site visits, track the progress of contractors over the life of the project, and simplify budgeting and forward planning for the various landscaping and maintenance requirements of ‘The Hermitage’ project. Furthermore, with 300 of the dwellings already occupied, the task of creating and sustaining a sense of community, within an environment still very much dominated by ongoing construction, presented a unique set of challenges.

"When I think about how we used to operate before nearmap, I feel like I’m looking back into the dark ages. With nearmap we’ve cut site visits to a bare minimum, saving up to half a day for each visit, and made significant productivity gains. Our budgeting and forward-planning processes are now more efficient and costeffective, and we have streamlined projectmanagement and maintenance processes." Oliver Roborgh, Development Manager for ‘The Hermitage’ project

Why nearmap?

See more, know more, travel less.

The nearmap solution minimised the number of potential site visits required, saving travel time and costs, while also improving staff productivity by enabling managers to retrieve project-critical information, such as the location and volume of dams needing to be de-watered, from a desktop or mobile device in minutes.

“Prior to nearmap, I would have had to drive out to the site, spend an hour or more out there and drive back to my office. That’s half of my day wasted,” said Oliver Roborgh, development manager for ‘The Hermitage’.

With nearmap’s timeline tool, Sekisui House now closely monitors site development and tracks the progress of building construction and infrastructure works, gaining insights that it then uses to support planning initiatives. With the ability to remotely monitor site development by using nearmap’s timeline feature to track the progress of building construction and infrastructure works, and it has supported more effective budgeting and forward planning for large civil contracts by simplifying assessment of new road-infrastructure and vegetation removal requirements.

Nearmap

View your location of interest as it is today, as it was last month or last year. With instant access to timeline support, you can monitor change and map the progress of a construction project, observe site and environmental changes, measure the effect of weathering, track seasonal growth or shadowing. nearmap's comprehensive archive of high-resolution images tracks change across time to deliver the insight you need right now.

Interested in Nearmap for your business? Enquire now

What our customers say

Adoption of nearmap’s high-resolution PhotoMaps™ imagery had an immediate impact on the whole organisation. “Pretty mucheverybody, from staff involved in preparing plans, and graphic support for base maps, through to company directors like myself, use the platform all the time,” 